The effect of Institutional Based Programmes in the Education
of the Visually Impaired Children and Youth in West
Africa

Isuwa J.
Jurmang

CBM
advisor on special education

Department
of special education

University
of Jos,

ABSTRACT

Two Residential Special
Schools; One in Nigeria and the other in Niger Republic were selected. The
school in Niger was 22 years Old
and the one in Nigeria was 28 years.
For those periods of years, the school had mean annual in take of 4 and
6 children respectively. The annual
enrolment therefore are 24 for Niger and 36 children for Nigeria. Huge resources have been put into these
schools, yet only a few children gain access to the schools. The research
concludes by looking into the economic and employment opportunities of the graduates. This has further questioned the goal and the method of educating
the visually impaired children and youth in the region.

INTRODUCTION

Education is concerned with
the total process of human learning by which knowledge is imparted, faculties
trained and skills developed. Many
other reasons could be attributed to having education. Some of which are political, cultural or
economical.

In Africa most parents can only support the education
of their children where there is employment prospects for them. They want to see their children gainfully
employed after graduating from school.

Visually impaired children
like their sighted peers have the same educational needs and expectation. Therefore appropriate quantitative and
qualitative education should turn them out with knowledge, skills and
understanding that will enable them to contribute positively towards their
personal development their extended families and their nation. They should not be seen in object poverty
and are not to depend on their sighted peers and relations for food, clothing, shelter and everything in their
life as the case often is. This calls
for revisiting and reorganizing the methods of educating them, their educational goal should be identified,
realistic and achievable.

RESEARCH AREAS

St. Joseph Centre
for the visually impaired Obudu
is in Cross - River State of Nigeria.
It was established in 1972 by the Catholic Arch Dioceses of Ogoja. It is a Residential Special school. In 1975 Reverse integration was introduced
in the school.

Ecole de Jeunes aveugle
(school for blind children) Niamey in Niger was established in 1978. It was
established by the Blind Union of Niger.
It is also a Residential Special School.

A general observation and
survey was done within the West African Region.

METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION

At Niamey, the Principal and
a teacher who is in charge of record keeping and correspondences and the Researcher formed the research team.

In Nigeria, the vice
Principal and a visually impaired
staff who was also an old
student of the school with the Researcher formed the team.

Most old students that were
around at the time of the research were interviewed. It was easier confirming
what the records had and inquiring
about particular old student of the
schools from them. They still had at
the tip of their hands the names and numbers of their mates. They in most cases had full knowledge of the where about of each
of them.

The researcher
toured and evaluated the
following Residential
Special Schools in West Africa:

* Wa and Manpong Schools in Ghana

* Togoville and Kpalime Schools in Togo and

* School for Blind Children Gindiri in Nigeria.

STATISTICAL
TOOLS

Simple Percentage
was used to quantify the research findings. Mean ( x ) was also used for evaluation.

DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

TABLE 1

ENROLLMENT FROM 1978 - 200 (22 YEARS) OF THE SCHOOL FOR BLIND CHILDREN
NIAMEY, NIGER REPUBLIC.

1978 1979

1979 1980

1980

1981

1981

1982

1982 1983

1983

1984

1984

1985

1985

1986

1986

1987

1987

1988

1988

1989

1989

1990

1990

1991

Fillers (Girls)

2

1

0

2

3

0

1

3

2

1

0

0

0

Garcons (Boys)

3

2

2

1

3

0

3

0

10

3

0

0

0

Special Class

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Total

5

3

2

3

5

0

4

3

12

4

0

0

0

1991

1992

1992

1993

1993

1994

1994

1995

1995

1996

1996

1997

1997

1998

1998

1999

1999

2000

TOTAL

Fillers (Girls)

0

3

7

2

4

0

4

6

4

45

Garcons (Boys)

0

1

5

3

3

1

4

6

7

56

Special Class

-

-

-

-

1

2

1

1

2

7

Total

0

4

12

5

8

3

5

13

13

108

1978 - 2000 = 22 years.

Total
Nos. of Boys = 56

Total
Nos. of Girls = 45

Total Nos. in Special Class = 7

Grand Total = 108

NB Special Class is a class set for people who became blind at
later life.

In Obudu Nigeria, the data
used in analysing enrollment and
employment are 183 and 293 respectfully.
This is because in enrollment, the school’s vocational training was not
considered. However in Job or
employment analysis the vocational candidates were added on.

In Niamey, Niger, 108 was
used for enrollment analysis only 95 were used for employment analysis. This is due to the fact nobody could remember the names of the other 13 and what
they do. It was difficult determining
highest qualifications in Niger. This
is because records only show countries they went to and not their highest
qualifications.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

Table and 1 and 2 show that
Obudu and Niamey have annual
students in take of 6 and 4 children respectively. The schools have classes 1 to 6.

Therefore their annual
enrollment is 6 x 6 = 36 for Obudu
Nigeria and 6 x 4 = 24 for Niamey Nigeria. This shows that only very few visually impaired children gain
access to school every year and only few of them receive education in the
schools.

The schools
are supported by Government, International Organizations,
Individuals and Philanthropic Organizations every year. Huge sums of money are used for only a few
number of children.

Tables 3 and 5 show the
spread of employment opportunities of the graduates of the schools.

In Niger only three types of
jobs are identified.

1.
Telephone Operators (11.5%)

2.
Weaving and Knitting (5.2%) and

3.
Painting (1%).

In
Nigeria it is a wide range of spread of job opportunities, but many of the job
opportunities have less then 1% employment of the candidates.

Craft is the
highest with (16%) followed by
Artisans 13.6% and
teaching 2%. All the rest are insignificant (less than
1%) figures or opportunities.

The
two cases showed that there are more positive employment opportunities towards
vocational jobs e.g Telephone
Operators, Craft, Weaving and Knitting and being Artisans. Special
Schools should lay emphasis towards giving skills that the graduates
would use their hands. The quest or emphasis on academic which
usually is with the hope of getting white colar job, the V. I. Children
in Africa hardly get such jobs.
Vocational skills be given the
children no matter their academic height. This could be started early with
prevocational skills from the
nursery class throughout the 6 year primary Training even up to the University
level.

Opportunities
for apprenticeship within the students locality be opened up. This may open up opportunities for other
Vocational Trainings that could not be available in the
school. Many educated or even graduates have turned to street begging for lack of what to do.

Table
4 shows highest qualification
obtained by the graduates of Obudu in Nigeria. 40.9% of those who went to the school,
dropped out 33.1% obtained trade certificate
only 4.7% and 3.4% got to Post
Primary and Tertiary Certificate.
2.3% obtained Junior Secondary
Schools Certificates.

A
high proportion of their dropped our despite the huge resources that are used
on them. Most often they come from
distances to the school. Perhaps schools within the locations will
take care of that. 33 .1% which is the
highest in certification is in the trade area.
This clearly shows again that Vocational Skills are very vital in the
training skills of the V. I. Children
in Africa. The number of those who
finish the Primary, Secondary and the Tertiary Institutions are still
insignificant.

OBSERVATIONS

Despite all
publicity of the Residential Special Schools in West Africa many
people are still pretending to
be unaware of such provision around them. Therefore
people do not want to get the services of the schools
as it should and they do not give the schools the desired support.
There is need to design
strategies for attacking such attitude so that people become genuinely
aware of the existence of such schools around them.

It
is becoming increasingly difficult to feed the students in the schools. On many occasions, schools close earlier for
vacation and they delay in returning from vacation. Both food quantity and quality are reducing in schools. Schools had sent the students out to the
streets to go and beg to feed in school.

Some schools have been indebted to the tune of
hundreds of dollars for feeding
the students on loan in the region. What we are beginning to get on the streets
is a group of academically educated
visually impaired beggers.

CONCLUSION

Governments in
the region are introducing the educational system that aims at giving basic practical skills to children at early
years of schooling. Unfortunately the
implementation is not meeting the need.
The idea would have met the needs of the visually impaired
children. The situation therefore now
is that there are only a few privilege
ones gain access to school. Yet a huge sums of money is spent in such
educational centres.

Despite
that, a high percentage drop out. It is
those seen early as failing and are referred for Craft Training that turn our to be the most
employed. The education that our
visually impaired children get is not the most appropriate to their needs.